


Can't Find My Way Home

by Baylor



Series: Birthright [45]
Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alien Resistance, Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Gen, Weigh It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baylor/pseuds/Baylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zeke and Stokely, trying to make it through each day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Find My Way Home

“This isn’t your responsibility,” he always tells her, and she doesn’t know how to explain to him that it is, that it always will be, and that, really, it’s a small price to pay. So she just slips on her shoes and grabs the keys and promises to be right back. 

It’s hard to tell when he’ll hit the breaking point and slip, because sometimes he’ll go for almost a year, and other times he can’t make it a month. So far as she knows, at least from what her questions to others have turned up, he's never slipped up when he's been away from home. 

George the bartender knows her and nods in greeting, then points to the end of the bar, where emptied shot glasses are neatly lined up on the polished wood. Zeke is humming to himself and idly twirling the final shot glass with one finger. 

“Hey, hey, hiya, there, Stokes,” he slurs when he finally notices her at his elbow, and breaks into a large, happy smile so unlike anything that graces his face during sobriety. “You wanna have a drink with me?” 

“No, but thanks,” she answers. “I think it’s bedtime. What do you say?” 

Zeke sighs. “Yeah, yeah, that’s good. You come to get me?” Without turning his head to see her nod, he continues, “That’s good of you. You’re always so good to me. Cuz we’re the only ones now, aren’t we, Stokes?” 

“There’s Del,” she answers, and steadies him as he slides off the barstool and onto his feet. Zeke snorts. 

“Del,” he says with scorn. “She hates me. Bitch.” He sways on his feet and nods to himself. “Bitch,” he says again, but sadly this time. “She wouldn’t come . . . she wouldn’t do a damn thing for me,” he adds. 

“You’d be surprised,” Stokely says quietly, and then says, “Whoa!” as Zeke teeters dangerously. 

“Careful, buddy,” George says, coming around from behind the bar. “You’ll squash your only friend here if you land on her.” 

“She’s tough,” Zeke mutters, and lets them slide their arms under his shoulders. One on each side, they get him out the door and into the truck. Zeke mutters, “Bitch,” a few more times, but other than that offers no objections. 

“You get him home all right, Stokely?” George asks as he shuts the door. Stokely waves away his concern. 

“I got him,” she says, and George nods, then raises his hand in greeting. 

An old song is playing on the radio on the drive back, the kind with melancholy guitars and weathered, yearnful vocals. Stokely moves to turn it off and Zeke mumbles, “Leave it on,” so she does.

Back home, Stokely gets her arm around Zeke’s waist and her body squarely under his shoulder and then guides him to stumble up the steps. His bedroom is wisely downstairs, so once up the porch, all she has to do is steer him to the back. 

“Babe?” John says from the second floor, and she answers, “I’ve got him. Go back to bed.” She bangs open the door to Zeke’s room and all but shoves him across it to his bed. He flops onto it and puts his face on the quilt. 

“You’ve got me,” he says, and starts to cry. 

“Zeke,” Stokely says, and kneels beside the bed. “Zeke, Zeke,” she croons, but now he is sobbing and clutches for her. 

“Zeke, Zeke, Zeke,” she whispers as she pulls him to her. His hands grip her arms so tightly that she knows she will have bruises in the morning, but by then Zeke will act like this never happened, like he never shed a tear, and so they will go on, until next time and the time after that and all the times after that, because this is her responsibility, this is her task, this is her life, and nothing could ever make her give it up.


End file.
